Men lust for hourglass curves, say researchers

The traditional theory of beauty says that for every man who chases the voluptuous type, such as Jordan or Marilyn Monroe, there is another who prefers to woo a waif such as Twiggy or Kate Moss.

But this and the idea that beauty is subjective and ever-changing has been overturned by Prof Devendra Singh and his daughter Adrian Singh.

The psychologists from the University of Texas today publish research showing that lovestruck men have only one thing on their minds: a woman's WHR - waist-hip ratio, calculated by dividing waist circumference by that of the hips.

Jordan and Twiggy have something in common: both have waists that are noticeably narrower than their hips and Prof Singh has found evidence this "belle curve" is ingrained in the male brain in his studies of Playboy centrefolds, the ancient Egyptians and tests on men from Africa to the Azores.

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Today, in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, they analyse thousands of examples of British literature from the 16th to 18th centuries with Dr Peter Renn of Harvard University to show once again that what men find attractive today was also true hundreds of years ago: a narrow waist and thus an hourglass shape.

"We searched the literature for any reference to a female waist and examined every passage that contained each such reference," said Prof Singh. "As a control, we also searched for the words breast, hip, buttocks, leg, thighs, slim and plump and compared how often the authors referred to these characteristics as attractive."

Two independent raters then judged whether the reference was romantic or non-romantic ("her hair came down to her waist" versus "longing to hold her lovely waist").

The romantic entries were divided into those which made no reference to size or shape (for example, "better are thy breasts than wine") and those in which either the shape or size was actually described (for example pretty, round, heavy breasts; slim or tapered waist) or defined by analogy ("thy breasts are like ripe pomegranates"; "whose waist is little as a wand").

For every century, three body parts - breasts, waist and thighs - are more often referred to as beautiful than other body parts.

Moreover, waist size was always described as narrow or small; there were 66 romantic descriptions of waist in these three centuries, and every one of them referred to a narrow waist. "They all seemed to like women with a low waist-to-hip ratio."

In contrast, while breasts had the most romantic references (219 entries), there were only 16 instances describing shape or size.

There was only one reference for large breasts and three for small breasts, whereas 12 descriptions referred to the roundness of the breasts. "Apparently, it is the shape (roundness - a sign of youthfulness)," said Prof Singh.

The team also found the hourglass in ancient literature. Two ancient Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana (first to third century), and Chinese sixth dynastic Palace poetry also link attractiveness with a wasp waist.

Consider, for instance, the description by Chinese writer Xu Ling (507–583): "Beautiful women in the palace of Chu, there were none who did not admire their slender waist; the fair woman of Wei." Similarly, the Mahabharata contains the description: "accept this slender-waisted damsel for thy spouse."

Remarkably, conclude the team, "even without the benefit of modern medical knowledge, both British and Asian writers intuited the biological link between health and beauty".

The chance that two ancient cultures opted to stress a slender waist as one of the hallmarks of feminine beauty by sheer chance "is exceedingly minuscule", they conclude.

Although culture is important - one small study suggested the Matsigenka men of Peru prefer wider women - Prof Singh believes its influence is mostly secondary to genetically conditioned behaviour to seek out a low WHR, where the ratio can vary from a curvy 0.67 to an almost tubular 0.9.

Modern science has helped to reveal why. An hourglass shape in women is associated with relatively high levels of the hormone oestrogen.

Since oestrogen levels influence fertility, men seeking to pass their genes to the next generation would do well to pick hourglass-shaped women.

As a corollary, a sizeable belly is reliably linked to decreased oestrogen, reduced fecundity and increased risk for major diseases by research conducted over the past decade.

Obesity is also a key predictor of cardiovascular disorders, diabetes II, various cancers (breast, ovarian and endometrial) and gall bladder disease.

However, the team is now trying to disentangle the effects of obesity from basic body shape by studying women who have had their fat redistributed during plastic surgery.

The team says its work supports the "good gene" theory which says that beauty is in the brain of the beholder: we all share evolved mental mechanisms that identify specific parts of a woman's body, such as a narrow waist, as indicators of fertility and health.

Thus a small waist is "a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic-morphological differences".

The author William Shenstone (1714–1763) put it more poetically: "Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty."